Murder 101 is a three-part docuseries, directed by Stacey Lee, that shows Alex Campbell’s high school sociology class in Elizabethton, TN investigate the so-called Redhead Murders. These murders incorporated the bodies of numerous women, all with red hair, who were found in the same area of Tennessee in a six-month span in 1984-85. The case went cold for decades until Campbell’s 2018 class started investigating the case, prodding law enforcement to open things back up on their end.
MURDER 101: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: We hear the voice of a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent starting the recording of an interview with a woman who was the victim of a vicious assault. We see overhead lights, an ashtray and a jacket with a TBI emblem on it.
The Gist: Then we cut to who is actually listening to the recording: A group of students in Alex Campbell’s sociology class at Elizabethton High School in Elizabethton, TN. Campbell races to stop the tape so show his students that it was recorded right after the victim was attacked.
Campbell grew up in Elizabethton, but had heard little about the so-called redhead murders, mainly because most of the women who had been found couldn’t be identified, and DNA testing or genetic genealogy research did not exist in the mid-’80s. That, paired with Campbell’s penchant for attention to detail and desire to teach his kids using project-based learning instead of out of a textbook, led him to start having his classes look into these murders starting in 2018.
In the series, we sit with his 2025 class as they pick up where previous classes left off. One of the members of the class, William McDuffie, is making a documentary, and we hear from his classmates as he interviews them. One classmate, Hannah Metcalf, is taking the class for the second time because she’s so passionate about solving the case. Another classmate, Crimson Lashorne, is new to the school, having moved in with foster parents shortly before the school year. She hears rumblings that her classmates think she’s strange, but she also seems to get engrossed in the case.
Along the way, Campbell teaches his class about making FOIA requests and how frustrating they can be, but also tries to get them to see the reasons why the case remained cold for over 30 years. A lot of it was because media coverage at the time concentrated on the lives the identified victims led — prostitutes or drug users — instead of seeing the victims as people with lives.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Murder 101, based on a podcast of the same name, feels like a bit of a cross between American High and Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer.
Our Take: The most fascinating thing we found about Murder 101 is that, for seven years, Campbell and his various classes have been trying to solve this extremely complex case in 45-minute bursts. We’re not sure if every period he has with this particular group is all about what they know and what they want to find out about the Redhead Murders, but they certainly spend a good amount of their time investigating. At least some of the students also continue to work on it outside of class.
If you’re wondering what investigating a serial killer has to do with sociology, you won’t after watching the first episode of this series. The students are being led through what law enforcement and previous classes have uncovered, including the identities of about a half-dozen victims and a person linked to not only one of the deaths but to the attack of Linda Marie Schacke, the only woman who survived. They’re building a profile of the killer given what they know about previous serial killer cases.
But they’re also learning skills that will help them in just about any facet of life. There’s a scene where the students call various county offices to make FOIA requests for law enforcement records, and they’re shunted to various voice mails or disconnected. This helps them learn to be more forthright in transactions, even if it’s just making a doctor’s appointment on the phone.
Most importantly, though, Campbell is making them see exactly why the victims were seen in such a poor light back in the ’80s, and tries to get them to look at the victims and their loved ones with the empathy they all deserve. As we watched, we were impressed with Campbell’s ability to get the teens interested in this case and how effectively he was able to teach the lessons he wanted to impart to them via the various things they had to look into in order to move this case forward.
Performance Worth Watching: Campbell seems to be a bit of a renaissance man, who built a huge log cabin for him and his family, makes costumes for historical reenactments, and more. He equates himself to being a rat in the bowels of the Titanic, with the lumbering and doomed ship symbolizing public education.
Sex And Skin: None.
Parting Shot: After sending Linda Schacke a video where the students talk about how much they care about the victims in this case and want to hear her side of the story, she sits down on a Zoom call with the class, talking about her attack for the first time in about four decades.
Sleeper Star: Hannah Metcalf is not only completely dedicated to this case, but she’s also extremely smart and very insightful for someone so young. We also liked Wil Bowers, who was in the original 2018 class and was the students’ spokesperson when they had a press conference about the case.
Most Pilot-y Line: None that we could find. Though we will cite how grating the class bell at Elizabethton High School is. It sounds like an out-of-tune harmonica.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Murder 101 is a fascinating look at how a sociology teacher gets his class to learn via one of the most interesting projects we’ve ever seen a class take on. But it’s also a treatise on why cases like the Redhead Murders go cold for decades.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
